 "Hanoi Jane" Fonda is claiming that ever since Vietnam, U.S. troops have been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy. "Starting with the Vietnam War we began training soldiers differently," the anti-American actress says in an email to the Washington Post. Fonda claims she learned of the policy switch in "secret meetings" she had with military psychologists "who were really worried about what was happening to our combat personnel." One doctor, she insists, told her U.S. troops had been deliberately trained to be "killing machines."
| Rather than as ernest debators of weighty subjects they know little about... |
"This began," Fonda maintained, "because the military discovered that in World War II and Korea, [U.S.] soldiers weren't killing enough. So they changed training procedures" to teach troops how to commit atrocities."
| True. The venerable M1 was replaced by weapons with more ammunition capacity. Greater reliance was placed on air support. Artillery went from being towed by horses to being self-propelled. The Russers invented the operational maneuver group, and we took the idea and built the combined arms concept. The entire purpose of warfare is to kill the enemy, and the side that does it better wins. |
Still, the anti-war gadfly cautions, it's important not to blame the soldiers themselves for carrying out war crimes.
| They don't know any better, see? Being simple proles and all... |
Recalling the "Winter Soldier" hearings that she and John Kerry staged in 1971, Fonda lamented: "When you put young people into an atrocity-producing situation where enemy and civilian are commingled, where the 'other side' is dehumanized, we cannot be surprised." Anti-war vets now returning from Iraq, Fonda cautioned, should be listened to instead of being dismissed as "unpatriotic."
| Antiwar vets returning from Iraq are vastly outnumbered by guys who're proud of their accomplishments. |
"We have not learned the lessons of Vietnam," she declared.
| And as usual everything is Just like Vietnam™. Why can't something be like the Blackhawk War? Or the War of Jenkins' Ear? Can we have a battle that's like Austerlitz, rather than like Tet '68? Just once? |
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